In which a young man is unlucky.
Jackson Rhodes ran desperately through the ruins of a castle he thought would be empty. He wasn’t sure where he was going; he was just trying to get there fast enough for the men with guns not to kill him. For months he’d been studying the movements of the Aligosh, a gang of thieves and murderers that had gained real power in the last year. They’d been using what was left of this place as a base and he’d learned that whenever they move out en masse they were gone for no less than a week. They moved as such yesterday. Even with the handful of people he was sure would be keeping guard; this seemed like the perfect opportunity to get some real intelligence, maybe even some loot.
He had been deftly sneaking about; inspecting what he could find when the whole troop returned early. They came in hot, fully armed and armored, and began taking positions around the building. It wasn’t long before he was spotted and the chase began.
Jackson burst through a door that was at the top of some stairs and saw daylight. He was in the middle of a round roof surrounded by a parapet. All there was for cover was an old crate which he hid behind and readied his ether carbine. The gun just finished priming when his pursuers caught up. He stood, fired a quick shot into one of them, and then ducked back down. There were three left. They traded several rounds of shots before Jackson’s weapon got hit. There was a high-pitched whine coming from his gun that was getting louder and louder. He muttered a curse, turned a dial on the carbine, and tossed it in the direction of the enemy. The impact of its landing caused its destabilized ether core to explode. Jackson ran out into the fray. Two of them had been laid out by the blast. The last was stunned, but a kick to the stomach and chop to the head took him down, too.
The fight left Mr. Rhodes completely unarmed, so he took an auto-rifle off of one of the thugs. Other than more guns, none of them had anything on them he could use at the moment. He considered panicking, and then he heard more people coming his way and felt that panicking was now obligatory. Again he glanced around the roof and took notice of the old crate. He rushed to it and tore its lid away. Inside were old tools; rusted picks, dull saws, spanners, and rope. Jackson grabbed the rope and eyed it suspiciously. It seemed sturdy enough, and the footsteps were getting closer. He tied one end to the parapet and dropped the length down the side. It almost reached the ground.
The rope creaked beneath his weight as Jackson tried to descend quickly but gently. He began contemplating promises of good deeds he could offer some greater power in exchange for safety, but they all rang false, and he was pretty sure Greater Powers could tell when you lied. Several feet above him the rope began to fray and he wished he had made the false offers when he had the chance. Scrambling up the rope, he managed to grab the other side before it snapped.
“Oh, Greater Power,” he said as he dangled from the end of a rope half-way up the side of an ancient castle. “I hereby swear that if I get out of here alive and in a reasonable condition, that I will do whatever it is that Greater Powers like people to do… so… acts of good, or whatnot.”
It was at that moment he noticed a curtain blowing out of a nearby window. Gathering what side-to-side momentum he could, he managed to swing himself over to the window and slither through it, collapsing from exhaustion on the other side.
A few minutes later, Jackson forced himself to stand back up and move back out. It wasn’t long before he was spotted again and the chase resumed. Several hallways later he came to a dead end and a giant set of double-doors. He peeked through the doors and saw several of the Aligosh aiming their weapons at the far wall. He was calculating his few options when he heard the tink of something rolling behind him. He knew better than to turn and look. He dove through the door and covered his head from the exploding grenade. When the dust cleared he found half a dozen thugs standing around him with their guns now pointing at him. “Well, Greater Powers,” he said with a defeated tone, “we had a good run.”Shots rang out and the half-dozen thugs fell. Steps slowly approached, but Jackson remained lying on the ground, waiting for whatever near-death experience would come next.
A man in a fitted military uniform and an auto-rifle came into view. “You okay there, son?”
“Sure.” Jackson still didn’t move.
“Don’t move.” The soldier knelt down and pressed a button on a small brass box. The front door exploded and more soldiers stormed in. He stood again and shouted “Secure the premises!” before looking back down to Jackson. “I’m Lieutenant Thomaston. I’m with the Dreadnaught Brigade. You’re Jackson Rhodes, right?”
“Sure.”
“You looking for a job?”
“Does it include acts of good, or whatnot?”
“Oh, yes,” said the Lieutenant.
“In that case, I already promised to help.”
